XX
"Is there any reason we're trekking through this mucky forest with a," she bent down to examine a flower that had been wilting, one of many in the surrounding area, "sad excuse for a garden?"
She didn't have to look up from the flower to know there were a pair of blue eyes boring into her skull with enough malice to kill her with just one stare.
"Yes," the elder woman who looked like she was about to lecture about plants and freedom hissed through her teeth, "I've brought you here for something other than your distaste for all that is nature. Being cooped up in that castle with nothing but riches has yet to humble you, dear."
They had been walking for a while now, Drizella eagerly following the woman who had called herself Mother Gothel. A woman with strength and power; a woman unlike her mother who had only been weak.
"We have been hiking around for hours. For someone with magic, you sure don't know when to use it, do you?"
The woman's snide remarks ceased when she saw a zap of light emit from Gothel's fingertips.
"While it's a very useful tool, you must remember that magic isn't the only way to get what you want. It's only the means to an end. Now, hush and let Mother think." The woman turned towards a path with bushes and leaves blocking any entrance. It looked eerily similar to the hedges in the Wonderland maze Drizella had only momentarily seen during their trek.
"Dead end?" The woman with the dark hair and long braid sneered.
"Your perception for someone with such magic is trifling." The older woman waved a hand over the blocked path and was met with a passageway to what appeared to be a tall tower in the middle of nowhere.
Drizella paused from walking any further as she took a gulp of air when staring at the tower. She had never seen it before, but she knew how much torment this place could bring..
Her mind flashed back to her mother's screams in the dead of night, waking up her father after having nightmares of this wretched place.
"Are you going to trap me in here?" Just as you did to mother. As you almost did to Anastasia.
Gothel began to laugh and shake her head. With the annoyance you've been to me of late I have deeply considered it. "No, I'm not going to lock you in here. In fact, here is where you will learn your first lesson."
"How to scale a tower? Or was it how to properly tend to a garden? Because that could seriously use some work." She kicked at some of the fauna on the ground, noticing how high some of the grass seemed to be, how it nearly came up to the top of her calf.
"Don't be stupid, child. I'm going to teach you the most important lesson you will possibly ever learn."
"Oh? And what exactly could I learn from an old building that used to house my mother prisoner?"
Gothel snapped her fingertips and the dark-haired woman before her became ingulfed in a black smoke.
"How to survive without magic, dear."
The last thing she saw before Drizella faded away was a look of fear on the woman's face.
Perfect.
XX
Love and children.
The easiest things to manipulate and the two things people would do anything for.
'I want him to love me!' 'I need you to save my daughter!'.
In her mind, children weren't considered people. They were underdeveloped minds that could be twisted and warped; a means to an end.
Drizella wasn't that young, but she was still a child. She was still that little girl pining for a mother's love, looking for affection that had been lost to time and heartbreak.
A mother's devotion for one child had outweighed the adoration of another.
It was so easy to attach 'Mother' to the infamous Gothel name and fill the hole in the younger woman's heart that she longed for.
Deception.
So many lives taken away for the sake of magic, of a curse, of wanting nothing but to be free from their past mistakes and tribulations.
Of course, all magic came with a price, and all sacrifices to that price needed a gentle push.
Just like Drizella.
The Guardian.
Power that will be mine, and all I have to do is wait. But to the witch, waiting was nothing. Her mind drifted to the past, waiting in that tower for so long for her freedom, remembering the subtle cries of a child that had granted her the pleasure of being released into the outside world.
Taking on Drizella, using her to cast this curse, waiting for a chance when she could possess the most powerful magic in all the realms. The wait was worth it.
Stupid child.
Gothel smiled as she remembered the primal fear on her protégé's face as she thought she was going to be locked in that tower just as her mother had been.
"But you're much weaker than she is, dear."
Her mind thought back to Rapunzel; a worthy adversary.
"What you're going to find in there," she whispered to herself, "is what happens to people who are weak. But maybe…Maybe meeting her will change the course of your plans."
She couldn't help the wicked grin on her face.
And play right into mine…
XX
"No!" It had been the last thing the young woman screamed before she was engulfed in black smoke, whisked away to a prison she was sure she would spend the remainder of her life in.
Her heart hammered in her chest as her eyes came into focus with her surroundings inside the stone confinement.
Gothel…Gothel was free. So why did she need to lock me in here? What does she expect me to do, scale the place from top to bottom like my mother once did?
Okay, relax…Breathe.
She thought back to her time in the woods with the other witches, a time when she had killed that blonde girl who had tried to kill her.
There were worse moments she supposed than being cooped up in a tower.
She finally decided to look around, her eyes adjusting to the bright light of the room. The sun had illuminated the entire tower, a change from the depressing bleakness of the world below.
It's a wonder those plants were dying. All the sunlight is trapped in this room.
Drizella had expected the tower to be filthy from years of inhabitance. She expected to see a substantial number of cobwebs covering the walls, decay and rot on the furniture.
But to her surprise, the place was quite clean.
It was as if someone had still resided in this lonely tower with no possible escape; a looming worry in her own mind as she thought of how she was going to get out of this situation without being able to use magic to free herself.
A soft footstep made her jump, turning around to see a blonde assailant around her age with a frying pan in her hand. The woman swung it once, threateningly.
"Who are you?" The young fourteen-year-old girl asked, narrowing her eyes and taking a step forward to take another swing. "And how the bloody hell did you get here?!"
"I-I'm…"
"A witch?! A demon? Are you her? Are you that awful woman who trapped me in here? Nice disguise. Looking to befriend me and trick me like you did to my Papa?"
The girl swung again and Drizella jumped back, knowing if she wanted to the girl would have hit her.
"I'm not here to hurt you!"
No matter what she had said, she knew the young woman wouldn't believe her, she was too scared.
But so was Drizella.
Deciding to stop her assailant and wondering how she was going to do so without magic, she quickly scanned around for anything that could be used as a weapon. After glancing around the room, unable to find something suitable enough to defend herself with, her eyes adverted to her feet. That'll work… she reached down to the heels she had been accustomed to wearing and quickly took one off, throwing it at her attacker. It hit the blonde in the shoulder, and she dropped the pan; the iron cooking appliance hit the ground with a loud twang, making the room eerily quiet.
"Now, will you please listen to me?!" Her eyes reached the young woman's, who was squeezing her shoulder in pain.
"You come into my prison and think it's okay to throw a shoe at me?! Are you mad?!"
"I'm not the one that tried to attack you with a frying pan!"
"Well I'm not the one that has never been in this place before and waltzes in here like she has magic! Only three people have ever been in this place. Me, my Papa, and the witch who cursed us. How did you get in here?"
She almost made a remark about her mother but decided against it. A stranger didn't need to know her family history.
"I…I had magic." She thought of the woman who took it away and wondered if that was the witch the young woman had mentioned. "A witch took it from me and cast me in here…Why, I'm not sure…" To teach you how to survive without it, but that's not something you need to tell her right now. She could be working for Gothel, a way to spy on me to see if I'm being obedient.
"Well, you don't really need it. You're pretty good at throwing shoes," the young woman tried to smile, but it came out as a wince as she grabbed her shoulder.
"Here, let me see," the dark-haired girl noticed how the inhabitant of the tower backed away, as if she didn't trust her. Smart girl. "I don't have magic, remember? And if I am stuck in this place then why would I want to hurt you?"
She could see the other girl relax a bit, staying in one spot as she let the woman examine her. "Have you had experience with this type of thing? Assault by footwear?"
The soft English tone of the woman's accent had been pleasing to Drizella's ears. She almost had forgotten the question the blonde asked when she heard the woman clear her throat and try to back away from her touch.
"Sorry. Yes. My mother…" She sneered, rolling her eyes. "Let's just say I've had more than just a shoe thrown at me."
She couldn't quite make out the look on the young girl's face. It had gone from confusion to a mild understanding, to confusion again and finally to something that seemed almost like sadness, yet a bit like pity.
"Don't. Don't pity me," came the growl as she backed away from the woman. But a soft touch on her wrist made her look up into eyes that were a shade of blue she had never seen before.
"I'm not. I…I don't understand it. I don't think I ever could. My Papa isn't that type of man. But…I know it's not right. I can't pretend to know what you're going through, or how to feel about it. All I could ever give you, if you wanted it, is a listening ear. My Papa used to say 'Starfish, if you let your emotions control you then you'll lose yourself to a darkness greater than the problems you're trying to run from. Sometimes it's better to let it all out than bottle it all in'."
Tears threatened to appear in the corner of her eyes but Drizella held them back. Now was not the time to be weak. Pushing the collar of her blouse to the side, she noted the bruise she left on the woman's shoulder and her mind flashed back to a similar moment in her life.
Anastasia would have never sniveled at something as insignificant as a broken violin bow. Get off the floor. I already told you, what happened was an accident. Now clean up this mess and get out of my sight. And I expect that shoe to be polished, free of any blood stains or scratches. Remember my dear, when you don't obey, worse things than trivial gifts by pitiful people get destroyed.
"Hello? Hellooo?"
Drizella blinked, noting she was holding on to the woman's shoulder a lot longer than she probably should have. With a flush in her cheeks, she let go and cleared her throat. "I can um…bandage that for you."
"Thanks. That would be mighty kind of you miss…Miss…Erm…"
"Drizella. And I don't think I can continue to be of assistance to you unless I know your name as well," Real smooth.
The blonde gave a wide grin as she nodded. "Alice." She reached out her hand and the witch looked at it confused.
"You're supposed to take it, silly. It's called a handshake. Papa says it's what you do when you're first meeting someone. He says you always grab their hand, and not their hook if they have one."
"Um…Why would someone have a hook for a hand?"
"If a crocodile bites it off, of course!"
Drizella giggled and Alice huffed, "you don't know many pirates, do you?"
She grabbed the woman's hand and shook it, signifying, to Alice, the beginning of their friendship.
"Not a single one. But it sounds like you do."
"Just one. Very famous. Best pirate out there! Sailed through all the realms with his crew by his side! Never gives up on an adventure because he has to fight for the treasure he wants most."
"And what treasure could that be? Gold? Silver? Money? Fame?"
Alice walked to a corner of the room and took out a small brown wooden box. She opened it to reveal several vials of sand and earth, each color different than the last.
"No. Adventure. Something to bring back to someone he loves most."
"Really? That's quite a risk to go through. What's this pirate's name?"
Alice grinned with pride as she turned to a chess piece on the mantle of her dresser next to her bedside.
Her smile seemed to faulter for only a moment, but she decided sob stories were meant for different times than first meeting a friend.
"Killian Jones."
XX